_3H_ 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



dark-red or brown in color. It takes a very good polish and is 

 employed in turnery, and is valuable for purposes of construction. 



Santalwood of commerce (Pterocarpus erinaceps) is occasionally 

 cut for lumber, but it is chiefly remarkable for the valuable 

 dye substance which it contains in its heartwood. The wood is 

 hard, moderately heavy, and bright red. It is so closely related 

 and resembles the other chief dyewoods of Africa that it is 

 often difficult to distinguish it except by means of the com- 

 pound microscope. The wood, which is used also as a substitute 

 for rosewood, is called Senegal rosewood in the English posses- 

 sions of West Africa. This species is confined chiefly to the open 

 forests back of the dense timber belt fringing the rivers and la- 

 goons. It attains its best proportions in French Congo. 



Another red wood quite common in this part of Africa is odwen 

 of the natives or the cam wood of commerce (Baphia nitida). Cam 

 wood has gross characters that are nearly similar to santalwood, 

 and is used also for dyeing or coloring. It is very plentiful in 

 some of the tropical evergreen belts of vegetation along the water 

 courses, but it scarcely attains the dimensions of a valuable com- 

 mercial tree. 



The mandji, or eloun {Oldficldia africana), which is known in 

 the trade as African oak, is a gigantic tree with a colossal trunk, 

 often attaining sixty feet to the first limb, and from three to 

 five feet in diameter. The wood is very durable and easy to work. 

 It resembles very closely the wood of fine black walnut, and is 

 often shipped to the English markets as African walnut or Afri- 

 can teak. It is somewhat heavier and harder than black walnut 

 and can be readily distinguished by its denser structure. 



Another tree which attains noble proportions is the oba, or 

 andok (Irvinflia gahoncni,is). The wood of this tree has not been 

 exploited, but its light yellow color, fine grain, and beautiful 



polish which it takes, render it a very desirable wood for cabinet 

 and furniture work. 



A substitute for mahogany, known by the natives of Sierra 

 Leone as kino, boi, or okwen, and in the French Congo as issan- 

 guila, or engassang (Eicinodendron heudelotii) , is a large tree, 

 plentiful especially in the mixed evergreen and deciduous forests 

 which occupy the well-drained areas. This wood has been ex- 

 ported from southern Nigeria and sold as African mahogany. The 

 wood is moderately hard, of medium weight, fairly close-grained, 

 light yellow, and very easy to work. 



Brounzi (Pentadesma iutyracea) is another important species of 

 timber trees found in the wetter portions, especially of French 

 Congo. It is a lofty tree scattered among those of more moderate 

 dimensions. The crown of this giant of the forest is usually 

 small and irregular; the trunks are almost cylindrical and often 

 from fifty to sixty feet to the first limb. The wood is hard, 

 heavy, and light-brown in color. The wood is of extraordinary 

 good quality and is used extensively in buildings for beams, 

 rafters, and also for piling. It is also used in the form of boards, 

 only it must be carefully seasoned or they will warp and twist 

 somewhat similar to the black gum of the south Atlantic states. 

 It is a very valuable wood for hydraulic works, because it is very 

 durable under water, but in contact with lime it is very perish- 

 able. The specific weight of the wood thoroughly air-dried is 

 O.S.'iO. This wood is highly esteemed in West Africa on account of 

 its durability and comparative ease with which it ma}- be worked. 

 The price of the wood on St. Thomas Island, West Africa, is 

 about $50 per cubic meter, except in the form of timbers thirty 

 or more feet in length, when it sells for $90 per cubic meter. Oba is 

 not affected by the termites. The tree is also noted for its fruit 

 which yields vegetables, oils, and fats. L. L. D. 



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National Problems We Must Face 



Editor's Note 



The following address was dcllverpd bv Harry A. Wheeler, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the 

 Tnitcd States, before the sixteenth annual convention of the National Hardwood Lumber Association held at Chi- 

 cago, June 5 and G. 



You have been a member of the national chamber or, as we call 

 it, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, for 

 about a year. I doubt whether you know much concerning it, and 

 while I am not going to recite in a stereotyped way the things which 

 we are trying to do, I am going to concentrate the time 1 have at 

 ray disposal, through your courtesy, in giving you what seems to me 

 the important relationship of the commercial interests of this country 

 to the general problems of our day, tlirough this national organization 

 of which you are a member. 



Now, your organization, great as it is, and standing for so mucli, is 

 not a preacher of a day. Organization is the evidence of jirogress 

 and prosperity in any nation. A savage nation needs no organization 

 save only that defensive organization of their personal property and 

 their homes against the invasion of an enemy. Nations that are 

 sparsely settled or developed only in a small way commercially and 

 industrially need no organization save the defensive, because they 

 have not reached the refinement of civilization which demands the 

 class and character of co-upoiatiou which your organization exem- 

 plifies. 



It is only as nations gather together the great productive value 

 of their fields and farms and mines and forests and the productive 

 or converted value of their mills and factories, finding themselves 

 building a complex civilization, that organization becomes necessary 

 as a refinement of the progress and the prosperity and the industry 

 of a nation. So it is that in the history of this country, from the 

 earliest days, when a few men in a given line of trade, or a lew men 

 in a locality, came together and united for a common purpose, they 

 found benefit in this gathering together of the few and the develop- 

 ment of sub.iects for study and consideration that demanded the ex- 

 pansion of that character of organization and so you have step by 



step the refinement of commercial organization, from the small group 

 into the state group, into the national trade group, and from the 

 small community into the state federation, and so on into the national 

 federation. There is a perfectly logical chain that carries itself 

 through the entire history of our commercial development, which led, 

 up to the present time, in the organization and maintenance of such 

 great organization as yours and such great community organizations 

 as exist in the larger cities of this country. 



All of that effort was most beneficial. It came about as an absolute 

 necessity that the interests of a line of business be protected by the 

 co-operation of those engaged in that line of business, against organ- 

 ized effort, which is always against your line of business by those who 

 take the other side, whether they be competitive in the sense of a com- 

 mercial antagonist, or whether it be that great popular opinion which, 

 unfortunately in the last few years, has come to be against business 

 of all classes; it is nevertheless the incentive that has occasioned the 

 organization of tra<le bodies and community bodies and their refine- 

 ment, finally, into tlie Chamber of Commerce of tlie United States of 

 America. 



Now, why? Your organization may speak with all authority with 

 respect to the problems tliat arc yours, problems that affect your daily 

 life, that affect every day of your business lives, that affect your 

 prosperity, but when your voice is expressed in behalf of those prob- 

 lems in a state legislature or the National congress, it is taken as the 

 voice of an interest in its own behalf, and its advice is certainly set 

 aside or diminished as a result of the conclusion on the part of those 

 to whom you address your requests that you are for the interest which 

 is yours and for your profit in that interest, and therefore a selfish 

 appeal has been made. Remember this is not my conclusion. I say 

 that trade organizations over the country have been given more 



